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CHICAGO — President Barack Obama tried to move past partisan fights over U.S. energy policy
yesterday with a modest proposal to fund research into cars that run on anything but gasoline.

Obama toured the Argonne National Laboratory outside of Chicago, known for its research into
advanced batteries used in electric cars, and then delivered a speech highlighting the need to find
more ways to wean vehicles off oil.

The United States has a newfound wealth of oil and natural-gas resources made possible by
hydraulic fracturing and other drilling advancements, but consumers still face high prices at the
pump because gasoline prices are tied to world markets.

“The only way to break this cycle of spiking gas prices for good is to shift our cars and trucks
entirely off oil,” Obama said in Argonne’s advanced photon facility, which says it produces the
brightest source of X-rays in the Western Hemisphere, used for an array of research projects.

The president proposed a fund that would draw $2 billion over 10 years from royalties the
government receives from offshore drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf.

The research would be aimed at new ways to lower the cost of vehicles that run on electricity,
biofuels, natural gas or other non-oil fuel sources.

Obama first mentioned the Energy Security Trust fund in his State of the Union address last
month.

The White House touted the idea as bipartisan, saying that it came from retired military and
business leaders, including some Republicans, who belong to a policy group called Securing America’s
Future Energy.

“This is not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea,” Obama said, standing in front of three
cars designed to run on alternative fuels. “This is just a smart idea.”

But Republican approval was far from assured.

“For this proposal to even be plausible, oil and gas leasing on federal land would need to
increase dramatically,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-West
Chester. “Unfortunately, this administration has consistently slowed, delayed and blocked American
energy production.”

By choosing to focus his first energy speech on research — an issue that appeals equally to
Republicans and Democrats, industry and environmental groups — Obama sought to build common ground
on energy, which has been a divisive policy issue.

In his first term, Obama pushed for laws that would use market forces to reduce climate-changing
carbon pollution, but the “cap and trade” bill was opposed by industry and failed in Congress.

His administration pumped $90 billion in economic-stimulus funds into clean energy and “green
jobs” projects, helping to expand renewable energy production in America.

But some projects failed, including a California solar-panel maker called Solyndra that had
received a $527 million government loan. Critics excoriated his administration for that failure, as
well as for delaying approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.